Country mouse - Mark Hedges

It's been a bad week in country mouse's sporting life: Arsenal, England (on two accounts) and Hardy Eustace all came a cropper and, to cap it, all his breakfast is pinched.

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It has not been a good week for my sporting interests. I support England at everything, Arsenal at football, and I had high hopes for Hardy Eustace in the Champion Hurdle. All lost. To be truthful, England did beat Canada at cricket, but the team had earlier lost their minds and our respect in the bars of St Lucia. The England rugby team was no match for Wales, and even my second team, Ireland, contrived to lose the championship to France in the last minute.

The Six Nations was a delight for the madness of sport: Scotland beat Wales who beat England who beat France who beat Italy who beat Scotland. No wonder I went astray in my reading of the form book in choosing Hardy Eustace. The unexpected is the joy of sport. Food is another matter, however. When the news arrived that the English teams were nursing various degrees of hangover, I was in Venice eating breakfast on a hotel roof balcony overlooking St Mark's Square. I had placed an American-sized portion on my plate and nipped back to grab some coffee. A minute later, when I came back, it was all gone. The other diners were giggling at my astonishment. A seagull

had gobbled the lot.

Country Life
Country Life

Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.

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